Film about living with Marfan syndrome

This ought to inspire me to finally write that novel. . . . .

Article on NFP

Wrestler, wife had argued over mentally disabled son, lawyer says

1. Just to be sardonic, aren’t all “professional wrestlers” mentally handicapped?

2. Someone makes a career out of promoting the idea that shouting and cussing and violence are the means to resolving conflicts, then applies it to his own family. Shouldn’t be much of a surprise.

3. The WWE may try to excuse itself by saying that steroids or testosterone injections and other stimulants *apparently* didn’t influence the violent rage, but the WWE is still responsible for the kind of culture it encourages and engenders–how much domestic violence in this country is committed by devoted WWE fans? Even as a kid, I despised professional wrestling because all the bullies and jerks I knew were wrestling fans.

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Adult stem cell breakthrough

This is better news from the Supreme Court than the Partail Birth Abortion ruling

Picket the NEA on July 2

Interesting column on "the rape exception" and GOP hypocrisy

Dear Mr. Sexton,

“I’ve always considered those who call themselves pro-life but then are willing to make exceptions in cases of incest or rape to be far more reprehensible that even the radical, though non-violent, pro-lifers who want to outlaw abortion in all cases.”

Partial agreement: I’ve always considered such individuals to be more reprehensible than those who are quite honest in their opinion that it’s OK to shred a baby limb from limb.

Perhaps your readers would like to know that rape and incest account for only less than 1 % of all abortions, even though they are such a common “exception” and such a common rallying cry for legalized abortion?Perhaps your readers would like to know that, “in 1979 Dr Sandra Mahkorn, a professional rape counselor, studied 37 women who had become pregnant through rape. (This was apparently all she could find. Pregnancy from rape is, in fact, extremely rare. The small numbers make the study less statistically significant. But we are certainly not going to hope for more rape victims just so we can get more reliable studies!) Of the 37, 4 did not complete the study. Of the remainder, 28 chose to continue their pregnancies, and 5 chose abortion. So of real pregnant rape victims, only 15% chose abortion.”

“When questioned, most of these women said that they saw abortion as another act of violence. One woman said that she “would suffer more mental anguish from taking the life of the unborn child than carrying the baby to term”.”

You note, “Roe v. Wade is the law of the land when it comes to keeping abortion legal”
The last time I checked, the United States Constitution was the “law of the land,” and the principles of “judicial review” and “penumbral shadow” upon which _Roe_ rests have never appeared in said Constitution. Rather, the fourteenth amendment of the Constitution guarantees the right to life. No one in this country can be deprived of that right without due process. Now, the way that _Roe_ gets past this is by saying that Constitutional rights only apply to US citizens. Unborn babies are, by definition, non-citizens, so they do not get the protection of the Constitution. Talk about a disconnect! Liberals go around demanding mere *civil* rights, like free education or healthcare, to illegal immigrants, and then support _Roe_, which says that non-US citizens are not entitled to basic human rights!

Lastly, you prove the capstone of your ignorance of US law, history and political theory (much less basic ethics and morality) with the following:
“If it was overturned, every abortion in the country would be a crime.”

Hardly. It would only be a crime in those states with a law on the books outlawing abortion. Many states had legalized abortion before _Roe_ and would continue to do so if it were overturned.

But your article hits on what is perhaps the worst hypocrisy of the Republican Party. Many, like the late, great Robert P. Casey, have questioned how the GOP became the “pro-life” party, when the Democrats are the ones who supposedly stand up for the weak and defenseless.

Conservatives are supposed to be strict constructionists. For *any* Republican to say “I will not seek a change in _Roe v. Wade_,” to accept the idea that the Supreme Court can create law and overturn the legislator, or to even talk about honoring the Constitution in the context of supporting _Roe_, is a violation of the most fundamental principle of American conservatism.

I’d rather vote for someone who says, “I am pro-choice, but I oppose _Roe v. Wade_ because it is so clearly unconstitutional. This is an issue that should be left to the states.

Commentary from some British rag on Blair’s intended conversion: Catholic politicians are OK if they’re milquetoast.

So, let me get this straight:Britain is a “secular state in all but name,” and its official church has the moral credibility of moral paganism, but Catholicism is now OK in Britain because, allegedly, Catholicism has lost its moral authority?
And a column which is on the one hand criticizing Britain’s anti-Catholic laws is rife with anti-catholic screeds, such as, “n the light of the horrors he helped instigate in Iraq he’s the best argument to date for abortion on demand and the morning-after pill! Certainly when he goes to confession and attempts to tell the truth on Iraq he’s in for a lorry load of Hail Marys.”
Nevertheless, the idea of a pro-gay, pro-abortion, pro-war politician talking about his allegiance to the Catholic Church, with no evidence of repentance for his political views, is distasteful at best.

Oh, and since when was Genghis Khan a Catholic?

Wrestler, wife had argued over mentally disabled son, lawyer says

1. Just to be sardonic, aren’t all “professional wrestlers” mentally handicapped?

2. Someone makes a career out of promoting the idea that shouting and cussing and violence are the means to resolving conflicts, then applies it to his own family. Shouldn’t be much of a surprise.

3. The WWE may try to excuse itself by saying that steroids or testosterone injections and other stimulants *apparently* didn’t influence the violent rage, but the WWE is still responsible for the kind of culture it encourages and engenders–how much domestic violence in this country is committed by devoted WWE fans? Even as a kid, I despised professional wrestling because all the bullies and jerks I knew were wrestling fans.

LOL! Obama says "we’re" the ones who "hijack" faith!

So, a member of a congregationalist denomination says that religious conservaties have hijacked faith?

Seems to me, the only proper guardians of faith are those entrusted by Jesus Christ with such guardianship–namely, the hierarchy of the Catholic Church. All other “Christians,” regardless of “denomination” or “politics” have “hijacked” the True Faith.

Now, an antiobiotic is shown to help "Marfan mice"

A study out of Nebraska shows that an antibiotic called doxycycline prevents aneurysm dissection in lab mice, improves elastin and helps other proteins related to Marfan syndrome symptoms.

I attended VIRTUS "training" today

Well, in the hopes of possibly getting a job, or at least being involved in my new parish, I decided to attend this evening’s VIRTUS session.

Now, there are a long list of reasons why people have problems with the USCCB’s “Safe Environment” programs. Many of the criticisms are hit upon in this article, which focuses on the claim that these programs are designed to shift the blame for the Catholic scandal away from homosexual prietss. That is definitely true in VIRTUS, where it is emphasized that “most abusers are homosexual” is a “myth,” cites a bunch of statistics about “heterosexual” abusers, gives no statistics explaining the “homosexual argument” as it were (e.g., that the vast majority of accusations against priests regard improper sexual behavior towards teenaged boys 14 and over). Consider the following statement from the Catholic League:

Almost all the priests who abuse children are homosexuals. Dr. Thomas
Plante, a psychologist at Santa Clara University, found that “80 to 90% of all
priests who in fact abuse minors have sexually engaged with adolescent boys, not
prepubescent children. Thus, the teenager is more at risk than the young
altar boy or girls of any age.”[viii]

Then there’s this piece from Concerned Women for America, The usual response is to paint those who take issue with the programs as trying to cover up their own sexual deviancy. Recently, the CMA came out very strongly against these programs in a position paper, and then Bishop Vasa, long a critic of the programs, teamed up with the CMA to write a program more in keeping with Catholic teachings.

Anyway, so I went to the session today.

As far as its objective, I actually found the session very weak. It didn’t really address much. There wasn’t much room given for discussion.

When I asked about whether children were required to go through these programs, I was told: “Every parish is required by the diocese to make these programs available to children in Catholic school and religious ed. But parents can opt out.”
“So, it’s not mandatory?” I asked.
“It’s mandatory, but parents can opt out.”

Much of the criticism boils down to certain factors: a) the claim that forcing children to attend these programs introduces them to sexual information at an inappropriate age; b) the programs don’t properly address the problem of homosexuality in the priesthood; c) the programs undermine the authoirty of parents; d) the programs are about PR and distraction from the real issues facing the Church. VIRTUS, from its website, is clearly all about “What to do so the Church doesn’t get sued for any reason.”

The criticism that I have *not* seen, but comes out of my experience with VIRTUS, is that the program isn’t Catholic.

I did get a lot out of the class, and it re-dedicated me to the safety of my own kids, always a priority, anyway. When I was talking with Allie after the session, I said, “There are lots of bad people out there. As you know, some bad people want to do bad things to you. Some bad people want to make you do bad things. Other bad people want to do bad things to you and make you feel like it’s your fault. What’s the main thing you can do to prevent that from happening?”

I was going to say something out of the video, along the lines of following parents’ rules and always communicating with us.

Her immediate response was, “I know! Pray!”

And that’s what’s wrong with VIRTUS. The session did not begin or end with prayer. The videos did not make any mention of prayer, fasting and virtue as key elements of preventing evil from happening in life. The only person to use the word “evil” was one of the former child molesters who spoke, and, if anyone used the word “morality” at all (I can’t entirely recall), it was that same child molester.

No one on the video spoke of spirituality, morality or evil. While they talked about “warning signs” of child molestation going on or of a person being a potential molestor, no one spoke of occultism. No one spoke of the Devil. No one spoke of sin.

They talked about foul language, pornography and lewdness, of course–all of which are also warning signs of extraordinary demonic influence, as well as molestation. Fr. Corapi and others draw a distinct connection between child sexual abuse and demonic influence. Fr. Corapi, for example, says that he’s only known a few people who were truly “possessed” in the technical sense, and they had all been sexually abused. And he said most people he knew who’d been sexual abused were tormented by demons.

In the famous St. Louis case from the 1940s upon which The Exorcist was based, the boy was found to have been sexually abused by his aunt, who died shortly before the alleged possession began. Many have argued that the evidence of sexual abuse negates the claim of possession, that the boy was merely suffering some psychosis resulting from the abuse.

So there was no mention of any of this in the video.

The video made the very good point that predators start by encouraging children to break simple rules, like giving them candy without parents’ permission or permitting some behavior parents might not allow (e.g., “Your parents don’t let you watch Barney? That’s silly. You can watch it with me. Just don’t tell your parents”), then move on to something worse (“Look at these pictures in this magazine. Don’t tell your parents! We don’t to get in trouble!”)

Yet the only depictions of the Church as such depict violations of liturgical norms: liturgical dance, folk masses, etc.

Worst of all, this video about child abuse (_A Time to Protect God’s Children_) begins with abuse of God: an image of a young girl drinking what appears to be wine from a glass cup.

Now, perhaps it wasn’t properly contextualized, and the video was meant to go with a later portion about molestors giving kids alcohol. However, in its context, it appeared to be a girl receiving Communion.

In that case, setting aside the controversy regarding laity receiving from the Cup as an ordinary thing, there are two clear violations in the video:
1. Chalices should be made of a metal that neither absorbs nor chemically reacts with the Precious Blood, yet the “chalice” in the video is glass.
2. The hands of the communion minister (presumably an extraordinary one) *pass* the glass goblet into the young girl’s hands.

Dr. Death gets out of prison; vows to continue his "art"

Kevorkian, released from prison for “good behavior,” says he is going to work on his art and his writing. In this painting, “Nearer, My God, To Thee,” he at least admits that his god is in Hell.

You know, for centuries people understood that art was supposed to be the depiction of order, harmonia, honoring the God of this orderly universe by depicting him, that good art-no matter who its creator was–always honors God and can be considered an act of worship. Bach, for example, insisted that every piece he wrote was a prayer.

Modernity threw out that idea. Now have postmodernity. When Christians say, “That’s devil music,” or “that’s satanic art,” we’re ridiculed. Yet then someone like Jack Kevorkian or Seung-Hui Cho is shown to bring post-modern art to its perfection, and the cultural elites scratch their heads in bewilderment (well, maybe at Cho). Even Stephen King admits the fine line between his craft and Cho’s, insisting that the main difference is the violent writer’s regular personality. However, the real difference, which King falls just short of, is moral imagination.

That is the continuum of my own thought and work, and the topics I include on this blog, even though it is primarily a pro-life issues blog: we are fighting a Culture of Death, a Culture of Satan. In many ways, abortion and contraception are symptoms of a nihilistic culture.

Film about abortion wins at Cannes

When it comes to expressing his views of church values, Roman Catholic
Archbishop Raymond Burke has a habit of making headlines, not always to the
satisfaction of his flock.

In other words, he’s orthodox.

Who ever said the “flock” had to be “satisfied”?? Jesus never said, “I will make you satisfied.” He said, “Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Me.”

More resign from Amnesty International over its support of abortion

When it comes to expressing his views of church values, Roman Catholic
Archbishop Raymond Burke has a habit of making headlines, not always to the
satisfaction of his flock.

In other words, he’s orthodox.

Who ever said the “flock” had to be “satisfied”?? Jesus never said, “I will make you satisfied.” He said, “Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Me.”

God joins in on GOP debate!

Making light of the situation, Giuliani quipped, “Look, for someone who went to
parochial schools all his life, this is a very frightening thing that’s
happening right now.”

I don’t think he should be making light of the situation. God will not be mocked.